


Shed My Skin

by SykoShadowRose



Category: RWBY
Genre: Character Study, M/M, Most characters are only mentioned, Multi, Pre-Relationship, Trans Male Character, Trans Qrow Branwen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2020-05-20
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:21:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24285775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SykoShadowRose/pseuds/SykoShadowRose
Summary: How Qrow became Qrow and found his way to Atlas and a possible relationship.
Relationships: Qrow Branwen/Clover Ebi, Raven Branwen/Summer Rose/Taiyang Xiao Long
Comments: 9
Kudos: 44





	Shed My Skin

**Author's Note:**

> So...
> 
> There are several Tran Qrow fics out there, but most (not all) only have a line or two about it. And my muse, Talarie, decided that I must write one too. And if I'm going to write a Trans Qrow fic then I'm going back to the beginning. (This story also made me realize that I have two trans relatives and five trans friends... I hadn't counted them before but I figured I should for the disclaimer...)
> 
> I am not trans and each expeience is different from individual to individual, so don't take this as fact or anything. This is just the best I can do as I am. (I am pansexual so maybe that helped with the mindset?)

Magpie Branwen was six years old the first time she realized there was something about her body that was _wrong_. Her twin, Raven, didn’t seem to ever be bothered by washing herself, she never seemed to feel like something was off about how she looked. Maggie didn’t like having her hair long the way her sister did. Didn’t really like the skirts the tribe gave her to wear. She didn’t understand why but she tried to keep her hair short and wore pants whenever she could get away with it. It was easy to do since she was almost never in the camp.

Maggie couldn’t always stay away though. Not when Raven was part of the tribe. (If it hadn’t been for her twin she would have run away years ago.) She hated going to the camp. The adults would sneer and shove her around. The other children in the tribe bullied her. If she was hurt out in the wilds (whether from Grimm or feral animals) she was left to scavenge for her own medicines, she was nothing but a bad luck charm anyways. Why would they care about what happened to her? 

Her twin would still come around (her semblance tied them together after all) but she was rarely kind. Even when one of the tribe members caused her harm, Raven just told her to start acting more like her and they’d be more accepting of her. It was those words that made her realize what was wrong with her body. Made her understand why acting like her sister was uncomfortable.

She was supposed to be a _boy_. 

After that Maggie started thinking of herself as a he and decided he liked the name Qrow. 

Qrow avoided the camp as much as he could after his discovery. The older he got the worse the abuse from the tribe became. They still called him Maggie, even Raven, and they kept trying to get him to act like his sister. He discovered the reason when he slipped into camp one day for something he couldn’t find out in the woods. They wanted him to dress and act like Raven because they wanted to use him as a decoy for his sister in case of an attack. He went out of his way to act as different from Raven as he could when in the camp after that. 

At the age of fifteen, Qrow found a nice little village (only ten families, not big enough to attract the tribe’s attention) tucked into the woods with people who didn’t seem to mind the little accidents that happened. (He didn’t tell them his semblance, he wasn’t willing to take the risk.) Somehow, someway, he must have gained fate’s pity because there was a healer in the village that was willing to talk to him about his body and teach him ways to change it, like binding his chest. By the time the tribe leader had decided that the twins were to go to a huntsman school to learn their ways so they could fight them better he had managed to be mostly at peace with his body.

Being partnered to Taiyang Xiao Long seemed like a breeze at first. Then the skirt prank had happened and though Qrow had found out the truth early on, he kept it up for a week as a test. Tai broke fairly quickly and confessed Raven had been the one to coax him into playing the prank, though he’d been confused as to why. It wasn’t until Qrow told him his past as Magpie Branwen and the tribe’s (including Raven) refusal to accept the change that he understood just how badly he’d been played. He’d been pissed and had nearly started an all out brawl in their dorm room until Summer had calmed everyone down. (She was just as furious when she learned what had happened but she kept a better handle on her temper.)

With Tai and Summer working together, Raven started calling him by the name Qrow and calling him brother. Resentment still lingered in her eyes though telling Qrow she had still planned on him being her decoy when they returned to the tribe and it caused tension between them. Their two teammates went out of their way to try to keep the peace with the twins, finding books on the subject and even attending a club in the city when they could. They’d even found a professor teaching at Beacon that was transgender that they hadn’t known about. (None of them took a class with her.) Professor Lake took Qrow under her wing when the two told her his story and helped him get the medicines he’d need for his change. By eighteen Qrow had managed to get the surgery to remove his breasts so he wouldn’t have to bind them anymore. 

It was incredibly freeing to look down and feel like his body was finally what it should be. (Well, mostly anyways. He hadn’t decided just how far he was going to go with the surgery yet.) 

Qrow’s first girlfriend had been nervous about the subject but willing to learn and tried to keep conscious of his boundaries. They had stayed together for six months before they decided things weren’t working out. (It was such a shame. She’d been great. Tai and Summer both loved her.) His first boyfriend had been curious but respectful (also gaining the affection and respect of Tai and Summer) and Qrow wished they’d been able to make it more than the four months they had together before his team transferred to another school. His second boyfriend was an asshole and Summer had punched him out their window the first time he’d used a derogatory term for Qrow in her presence. His next girlfriend hadn’t been much better resulting in Tai tossing her out on her ass after one of their fights that had happened in the dorm room. (Raven hadn’t cared much as long as they left her out of it.)

The girlfriend after that had been bitchy, the boyfriend after that had been controlling, the next abusive, the next girlfriend was manipulative, the one after that kept accusing him of sleeping around. Eventually, after more failed relationships than he cared to count from first year to beyond graduation, he just stopped trying to date people. At least Tai and Summer had managed to settle Raven down (the pregnancy may have had something to do with it, he couldn’t imagine movement being easy with a stomach like that). For a while the four of them seemed like they were going to have a happy family, even with the work they were doing for Ozpin. 

Then Yang was born and Raven bolted. 

Qrow tried to stop her. The end result was both of them wounded and bleeding with her still gone and him sitting in the house waiting for the rest of the family to come home. Instead of getting up to tend his injuries (like he knew he should), Qrow got up to grab the bottle of vodka they kept for when they wanted to let loose a little. (Or when a mission was a little too bad and they needed to take the edge off.) It hurt enough that Raven had abandoned them, he didn’t need to remember the things she’d said before she left. He didn’t remember Summer finding him in the kitchen with the empty bottle or Tai carrying him upstairs so they could put him to bed. 

Explaining everything that had happened the next day with a hang-over was awful but he knew he had no one to blame but himself for that one. They took it better than he expected (certainly better than he took it, but neither of them were her twin, even if they had been in love with her) and he realized they had been waiting for her to run back to the tribe. They hadn’t wanted Yang because they thought it would make her stay. They wanted the little girl because she was the legacy that they could love without being rejected. Yang was the treasure of Raven they could keep. 

He could see how that would make it easier and tried to join their mindset. It didn’t always work. Alcohol helped when he couldn’t forget on his own. He knew it was becoming a crutch but he didn’t know how else to cope when things got too bad for him to handle. Especially when Ruby was born and Summer never came home. Tai was a wreck and Qrow wasn’t much better. It wasn’t like with Raven. Neither expected Summer to be gone. They had no way to reconcile her loss the way they had with his twin.

It was the beowulf that got them back on track. The near miss drove them both to straighten out at home and be there for the girls when they needed them. (It didn’t stop him from drinking but he’d become a functioning alcoholic, though he wouldn’t admit it even to himself.) They did what they could when they could and for years it was enough. Then Beacon fell and Ruby left for Haven and made it all the way to Atlas.

~

The first time Qrow watched RWBY face off against FNKI he’s a bit ashamed to admit he hadn’t actually caught most of the fight. His attention had locked onto the tall, quiet Kobalt instantly recognizing the little tells that he’d mostly trained himself out of. He waited to see if the younger man would recognize the same signs that he still carried but wasn’t surprised when he didn’t. He was debating how to approach the other to offer advice (and help if required) when it came out on it’s own. 

He’d been walking with Jimmy and the Ace-Ops to the training rooms (RWBY and FNKI were facing off against the Aces to test how they worked with unfamiliar teams while JNR was on a mission with Winter) when they came across the two teams already gearing up to (fist) fight a team of older hunters from Atlas Academy. He only needed to hear a few jeers from the older team to realize they were focused on Kobalt (RWBY stood quite firmly in front of him, like they could physically shield him from the harsh words) and his transgender nature. Qrow hadn’t hesitated to join his nieces and their teammates in defending the young man and readily slammed his own past as a transgender into the mocking teams faces. 

The looks on their faces when they realized one of the most legendary huntsmen was transgender was priceless- totally worth whatever lecture he’d get from Jimmy- and he wished he had a picture of it before they scurried off. Turning to face the teens, he was met with wide eyes from all of them. Even his nieces which gave him pause. They’d been told about “Maggie” growing up hadn’t they? He stood for several moments, trying to recall when he had told them. He was sure he had… But the surprise evident on their faces said that they hadn’t known. 

The bombardment of questions resulted in the training being cancelled so that he could explain everything. Kobalt actually came to him at the end of the story to ask more detailed questions, so he couldn’t even be upset about the teen assholes that had been harassing the blue teen. After all was said and done, Jimmy promised FNKI that if anything like that happened again they could come to him and he would deal with it accordingly. (He had already sent a message about the incident to Winter and she’d disciplined the team by that point.) 

It didn’t surprise him when various members of those present (or JNR+O, who had been filled in by RWBY) came up to ask more questions. It brought him closer to all of them in different ways, his kids mostly and oddly enough Clover. The handsome brunette went out of his way to accomodate any shifts in behavior that would make Qrow more comfortable even as he tried to understand him better. It was a random thought that hit the Branwen that the soldier was a combination of his first girlfriend’s and first boyfriend’s attitudes towards him. For the first time in a long while, Qrow found himself considering a relationship. (Even, briefly, thought about what it would be like to have a kid.) 

Qrow decided one day, as he walked into the mission room and was greeted by a familiar smile, that he would let things play out. See where fate took him this time even if it had burned him countless times in the past. After all, some things were worth taking the risk and the brunette keeping stride beside him was one of those things.


End file.
